Dominik Renzel

Mobile Community Cloud Computing: Emerges and Evolves

With the advent of mobile smart phones, new types of virtual communities arrived, i.e. mobile communities. Mobile communities, with respect to their IT needs, introduce new requirements compared to traditional online web communities. On the other hand, cloud computing is emerging as computing concept that promises provision of computational resources on demand and abstraction of technical details from the clients. We propose Mobile Community Cloud Platform (MCCP) as a cloud computing system that can leverage the full potential of mobile community growth. An analysis of the core requirements of common mobile communities is provided before we present the design of our cloud computing architecture that supports building and evolving of mobile communities.

Towards responsive open learning environments: the ROLE interoperability framework

In recent years, research on mash-up technologies for learning environments has gained interest. The overall goal is to enrich or replace traditional learning management systems (LMS) with mash-ups of widgets and services that can be easily combined and configured to fit the learner needs. This paper presents the implemented prototype of the ROLE interoperability framework and a business and an educational case study. The framework provides a common technical infrastructure to assemble widgets and services in Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). Evaluation results indicate that the perceived usefulness and usability is high for one case study in which a mature LMS was enriched with ROLE technology. In the second case study, an early mash-up prototype was deployed. The usefulness and usability of this early prototype were rated low, but the case study provides interesting insights for further research and development.

Requirements Bazaar: Social requirements engineering for community-driven innovation

The innovation potential of niche communities often remains inaccessible to service providers due to a lack of awareness and effective negotiation between these two groups. Requirements Bazaar, a browser-based social software for Social Requirements Engineering (SRE), aims at bringing together communities and service providers into such a negotiation process. Communities should be supported to express and trace their requirements and eventually receive a realization. Service providers should be supported in discovering relevant innovative requirements to maximize impact with a realization. In this paper we present Requirements Bazaar with focus on four aspects: requirements specification, a workflow for co-creation, workspace integration and personalizable requirements prioritization.

MobSOS - A Testbed for Mobile Multimedia Community Services

Due to recent developments in the domain of mobile broadband communication and a growing availability of standardized development tools for mobile devices a new generation of mobile services and applications is expected to emerge in the near future combining well-established multimedia and community concepts with mobile aspects. However, it is often challenging to predict the success of such new services. In this paper we present a short overview of the MobSOS testbed and its homonymous success model based on a combination of traditional information system success models with modern requirements for mobile multimedia communities. Finally we outline the application of the MobSOS testbed to NMV Mobile, a mobile multimedia capturing, annotation and retrieval tool.

Well-Balanced Usability & Annotation Complexity in Interactive Video Semantization

In the recent years more and more people have begun to edit video files, as technologies are becoming more sophisticated and affordable. Web 2.0 has raised tagging functionality to a growing number of websites such as Flickr and YouTube. However, these services only provide basic video annotation support. In comparison to those well-known services there are many research efforts towards video semantization tools. These tools provide highly precise annotation functionality based on metadata standards such as MPEG-7, but tend to exhibit very complex user interfaces. In this paper we present the design, implementation and evaluation of SeViAnno, an MPEG-7 based interactive semantic video annotation Web platform with the main objective to find a well-balanced trade-off between a simple user interface and video semantization complexity.

From micro to macro: analyzing activity in the ROLE Sandbox

Current learning services are increasingly based on standard Web technologies and concepts. As by-product of service operation, Web logs capture and contextualize user interactions in a generic manner, in high detail, and on a massive scale. At the same time, we face inventions of data standards for capturing and encoding learner interactions tailored to learning analytics purposes. However, such standards are often focused on institutional and management perspectives or biased by their intended use. In this paper, we argue for Web logs as valuable data sources for learning analytics on all levels of Bronfenbrenners Ecological System Theory and introduce a simple framework for Web log data enrichment, processing and further analysis. Based on an example data set from a management service for widget-based Personal Learning Environments, we illustrate our approach and discuss the applicability of different analysis techniques along with their particular benefits for learners.

Collaborative Development of a PLE for Language Learning

This paper provides a report on the experimental collaborative and distributed development of a prototypic Widget-based PLE. The development process is described and detailed taking into account the requirements of a language learning scenario. First results are presented, and developer experiences are discussed critically with a focus on the development process as well as problems with current Widget technologies and interoperability

The social requirements engineering (SRE) approach to developing a large-scale personal learning environment infrastructure

In this paper we reflect on the limitations of applying traditional requirements engineering approaches to the development of a large-scale PLE infrastructure, which is precisely the aim of a technology-enhanced learning project called ROLE. The Social Requirements Engineering (SRE) approach has been proposed as an appropriate alternative. The SRE process is grounded in an agent- and goal-oriented conceptual model. The implementation of SRE prototypes was structured with a five-staged requirement lifecycle: elicitation, negotiation, selection, development and feedback. We report results of the preliminary evaluation of the prototypes and lessons learnt. Several relevant issues have been identified, including the lack of a consensual understanding of key concepts, lurking within Community of Practices (CoP), and cultural differences. Possible solutions are proposed to address the issues, including templates, mandatory voting and prioritisation model.

Mobile Multimedia Management for Community-Aware Storytelling

Storytelling is a natural and effective approach to human communication. The enrichment of stories using multimedia technologies has been established in knowledge sharing for professional communities since long ago. However, mobile multimedia production and consumption for storytelling raises several issues for mobile data management. We start with a requirements analysis for various application scenarios ranging from business to common life with mobile multimedia storytelling. A mobile multimedia data management model is proposed based on the presented scenarios. A test bed for the measurement of mobile multimedia community information system success is briefly described for the evaluation of our approach.

IS Success Awareness in Community-Oriented Design Science Research

Design efforts on innovative IS artifacts are increasingly taking place in agile, small, and specialized long-tail communities supported by academic research. Long-tail communities need to reflect and develop awareness for the success of community-specific IS CIS artifacts in their particular practice context in an ongoing manner. In community-oriented DSR, researchers participate as active community members contributing CIS success awareness with the help of CIS success models resulting from ongoing CIS evaluation. However, CIS success awareness is challenging to achieve compared to organizational IS due to diversity, dynamicity, informal structures and permeable boundaries. In this paper, we emphasize the benefits of ongoing CIS success awareness with the help of custom-tailored CIS success models in community-oriented DSR contexts. We demonstrate our approach in a longitudinal case study of designing and evaluating therapeutic tools in an aphasia community.